Sunday, May 14, 2006

The Florida no-go zone

With AllState and other insurance companies cancelling insurance policies up and down the Atlantic Coast and refusing to write new ones in other states I wonder what effect this will have on Florida and others who are due to get whacked by hurricanes with increasing frequency. Is there a chance that people will start to leave those areas for safer places? But where can you go in the US that isn't subject to hurricanes, tornados, winter storms or earthquakes?

If nothing else this just goes to show that insurance companies never write a policy they think they might actually lose money on. It brings to mind the idea of communities self insuring - a policy (no pun intended) that might actually encourage greater honesty in claims. It could also avoid the problem of greedy insurance companies that dump their filty lucure into investments that loose when the economy crashes and then pass back to their customers.

I think it is only a matter of time before someone figures out how to use the Internet to collectively write insurance policies for the lowest possible premium. The big problem would seem to be who polices the claims?

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